


Cherry Wine

by keraunoscopia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Abuse, Bisexual Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, happy-ish ending, hurt sort of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:27:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keraunoscopia/pseuds/keraunoscopia
Summary: Rafael might not be the most observant person in the world, but he has a pretty good idea of what's been going on.





	Cherry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly implied domestic violence. I don't know why I always have to make Sonny suffer, but its just so much easier to write than Rafael suffering. Hope y'all don't hate this. I may write a part two, but haven't decided yet.

Rafael Barba had never been a particularly observant man. He’s not totally oblivious, of course, and he has a keen eye when it comes to his work. He misses nothing because he’s so obsessively nitpicky that he wears each case down to its bones before building it back up himself, so he knows it inside and out. But in terms of human relationships, he’d never been particularly observant. Rita had teased him mercilessly during college, about how he didn’t realize when women were flirting with him, how he didn’t realize that the boy he met up with wasn’t actually looking to study even though he had called it a study date, how he didn’t notice that Rita had been in every single one of his first year classes before they finally bonded at a summer internship before their 2L year. 

Liv teased him just the same, about how he didn’t notice when she had rearranged her office and he started bumping into her desk when he walked in, about how he didn’t notice when Carmen had switched his coffee to decaf for an entire day as a prank, and he had just slowly grown more and more irritable. He didn’t even realize that Amanda was pregnant until he had gotten the baby shower invitation, only then recognizing the discrete bump of her belly. 

But he noticed Dominick Carisi Junior the moment he walked into the precinct. It was the mustache, Rafael told himself. That god awful mustache that looked like something fuzzy had crawled on the man’s upper lip and died there. Not to mention the Staten Island accent. He had thought Amanda’s southern drawl had been annoying, but Sonny’s over eager additions to every meeting on every case were impossible not to notice. 

He noticed how intelligent the man was, even if Rafael wasn’t particularly keen on acknowledging it. Rafael had gotten into Harvard on a full scholarship, something he was still quite proud of, but he had spent three years totally dedicated to his legal studies. Three years of eating, breathing and sleeping in the law. He balanced legal internships and volunteering at legal clinics with his coursework, but it was still, all law. But Sonny was balancing the sort of job that could be all-consuming in it of itself with the sort of schooling for a profession that required a hundred and ten percent. And from his over-enthusiastic running commentary, he hadn’t just managed to survive both, but he was thriving. Rafael noticed that, and he was impressed, a point that he was willing to take to the grave. 

He noticed when Sonny shaved the mustache, though to be fair, it was one of those things that was hard not to notice. He looked like a completely different person, had suddenly gone from a seventy’s porn director to a choir boy, more adorable than creepy. He noticed when Sonny’s wardrobe started to change too, it was a little at a time, first a tie here, a tie there, then he started wearing vests, suits started fitting better and Rafael couldn’t help but wonder if it was a little out of an attempt to emulate him, because even though Sonny was annoying as hell, Rafael couldn’t help but feel his ego inflate a little with every admiring look. 

He noticed when Sonny’s attitude changed. It wasn’t significant at first. He was a little less eager, a little more reserved, a little less likely to jump up and volunteer to help him with witness prep, or reviewing case law. But it was more than that. He was agitated more often, jumpy, on edge. Rafael had no idea what was going on, because no one else seemed to notice- and Rafael knew he wasn’t known for his own detective skills. He invited the young detective for coffee, offered to help him study for the bar, asked for his input on cases, but he was turned down, time and time again. At first he figured that maybe he had pushed the boy too hard, that his incessant teasing had finally hit home in a way that he couldn’t recover from, but then Sonny seemed to be just as short with the rest of his squad, so Rafael assumed he hadn’t done anything in particular. 

It was a few months later when he started noticing the bruises. They were faint, only visible when the light hit just right, circled around his wrists like the shadow of a watch he wasn’t wearing. 

It was scratches next across his cheek and on his arms, from his niece, Sonny had explained when he caught Rafael staring for just a little bit too long. 

Sonny stopped rolling up his shirt sleeves. Rafael probably wouldn’t have ever noticed that much, except that the air conditioning had been busted on one of the hottest days of July, and everyone had been shedding layers and pushing up sleeves, opening collars, but Sonny Carisi, sitting in the interrogation room still had his tie tightened and his cuffs buttoned at his wrists, even with the dark stains of sweat on his back. 

Rafael wanted to say something, wanted to reach out, ask the young detective what was going on, but despite their working relationship of nearly three years, he knew it wasn’t his place. Even after shadowing the ADA for an entire trial, they would have hardly considered each other friends more than coworkers. 

But they did still work together, and he was on a hunt for the sandy blond who had case file he needed for an arraignment in the morning. Rafael wasn’t in a particularly good mood to begin with, and he had been looking for Sonny for nearly two hours just trying to get the god damned files. He pushed the door to Liv’s office open and leaned in. 

“For god’s sake, where is Carisi?” He demanded, a scowl on his face. 

Liv just looked up from the pile of papers she had been reviewing, and raised an eyebrow at him. Rafael rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been trying to hunt down your detective for two hours, I just need his notes on the Jacobs case,” Rafael explained further, bristling under her suspicious gaze. 

“I think he’s in the crib,” she replied, pulling her reading glasses off her face. “Are the notes really that important, I thought you had everything you needed to charge him?”

Rafael rolled his eyes again, “do I tell you how to do your job?”

“All the time,” she grinned.   
Rafael just huffed and closed the door behind him as he continued his search for the Italian detective. He crossed the bullpen in a few quick steps, his shoulders squared, jaw clenched, bracing himself for the inevitable attitude if he had to wake the detective up. He knocked once, rapping his knuckles against the door before pushing it open, but he froze as it swung on its hinges, creaking loudly. 

Sonny had one arm in the sleeve of his button up, but the rest of his torso was bare. And while that may have been enough to give Rafael a moment for pause on a normal day it wasn’t quite what caught his attention, sucking the words out of his mouth before he could say them. 

Dark blue and purple bruises spotted his skin, the size of softballs, and even in the dim light, he could see the light green and yellow fading discolorations elsewhere. “Sonny,” he breathed out softly, before he realized what he had said. 

Sonny’s eyes snapped up to Rafael’s, like he hadn’t recognized that he was standing there, and he slid the other sleeve of his shirt on, turning away from the door, gaze dropping just as quickly. “Since when do you call me Sonny?” Rafael knew he was trying to tease, but it just sort of fell flat in the space between them. 

“What is going on?” Rafael asked, “Liv didn’t say anything about you getting roughed up by a suspect.” The words came out slowly, trying to keep the concern out of his voice- it wasn’t his place. 

“What do you need, Counselor? I was gonna try and take a nap.” He nodded to the bed as he buttoned his shirt, still angling away so Rafael couldn’t catch another glimpse of the chest. 

Rafael just raised an eyebrow. He may not have been the most observant, but he could figure that it wasn’t the time or place to push. “The files, for the Jacobs case. I need your notes.” 

Sonny just nodded and pushed through Rafael back out into the bullpen, collecting the files from his desk, handing them to Rafael without another word. 

It was two weeks later when Rafael was convinced that he was developing some sort of ulcer. Surviving off vending machine pretzels and coffee certainly didn’t help, but he couldn’t seem to get the image of the bruises littering Sonny’s chest out of his mind. He had looked back through all of their case files from the past few weeks, there was nothing to indicate that Sonny had any sort of physical altercation with anyone on the job. 

Rafael really hoped it wasn’t what he thought it was. He wasn’t observant after all, if it were true, surely someone else would have noticed, surely Liv in her undying wisdom and compassion would have swooped in and saved the day. But the more he thought about it, the more his stomach seemed to hurt, and he couldn’t let it go. 

So maybe it was a bit of an abuse of power, having one of the uniformed officers at the precinct look up Sonny’s home address, but the stomach aches were becoming unbearable, and he knew he had to settle it, once and for all. 

That was how he ended up climbing up six flights of stairs in a sort of run down old building in Manhattan in a three-piece suit. He paused to catch his breath at the top of the stairs, but froze when he heard it, the sound of breaking glass, a plate or something shattering against the wall. He knew the sound, recognized it all too well. 

“You’re fucking useless, you know that?” The sharp voice cut through the walls like they were made of paper. Rafael paused again, glancing at the letter on the door. Maybe he had moved, Rafael frowned. 

“I’m sorry.” Rafael wasn’t very observant, but he would have recognized that Staten Island accent anywhere. He had never heard Sonny sound quite so meek, quite so beaten down, and he could feel tears welling in his eyes. Before he had a chance to blink, the door swung open and a thin brunette stormed out, slamming the door behind her before stopping down the stairs without giving Rafael a second glance. 

Rafael steeled himself, he hadn’t come this far just to turn around and leave. He took a few steps forward and rapped his knuckles against the door. 

“Layla I’m sorry, I didn’t mean,” Sonny half whispered as he swung the door open, but paused when he realized who was standing in the door way. “Counselor…” His eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

“I-” Rafael stumbled. He hadn’t actually figured out what he was planning on doing once he got there, he had been hoping that the situation would prove him wrong, not right… “I don’t know why no one else sees what’s going on here, Sonny, I’m not even sure if you see it, but I do.” He started slowly, “and you may not consider me a friend, you may not consider me anything more than a pain in your ass, but I care about you. I care about you and I can’t sit here and watch all of this happen because you do not deserve this, Dominick Carisi, you don’t, no matter what twisted justification you’ve come up with. Pack a bag.”

Sonny just stood there, his face impossible to read until Rafael’s last words. “Wh-what?” 

“Pack a bag, you can’t stay here.” 

“Counselor, you don’t have to do this, I’m fine. Really.” Sonny attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Look me in the eye and tell me that the woman who just stormed out of here wasn’t the one who caused those bruises I saw.” Rafael bit back quickly. Sonny ducked his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’d never been a great liar in the first place. “Right. So go pack a bag, I have a guest room, we can figure the rest out in the morning.”

Sonny sucked in a sharp breath, but nodded. “Okay.”


End file.
